Are You Looking for Work?
A PERSONNEL COUNSELOR SUGGESTS METHODS INTECHNIQUE OF LOCATING GOOD JOBS
HAVE YOU the problem of making the most of your life from an economic standpoint? Plainly, do you have to work for a living? If so, the first thing you must realize is that for the man of average or more than average ability, making good in business is 90 per cent a matter of starting right. This means getting into the right industry and the right company and the right job. Getting exactly the right job is quite different from simply getting a job.
Getting the right job is a sales problem. This is true regardless of your age, or the kind of position, or the salary you desire. You are going to sell yourself. You must be the sales manager, advertising manager, and salesman.
When you get the idea that you are not going to apply for something, but to sell your services, fixed in your mind, you will soon find yourself thinking of ways and means to secure the job you want.
This sales problem which you are facing can be divided into 4 parts:
1. The analysis of yourself to find out exactly what you have to sell.
2. The study of your market to determine who and where are your prospects, with particular attention to the tides or trends in business.
3. The planning of your campaign, that is, determining the best ways of establishing contacts with your prospects.
4. The execution of your campaignestablishing employer contacts and selling your services.
How do you do these things? First, you realize that in any job problem, the employer is the dominating factor. He has the job and he has the money. If you want his job and his money, you must get over on his side of the fence and find out what he needs and why. In selling, this is called getting the "you" attitude. "Contacts," socalled, are important things in getting jobs; but few men get jobs solely because of their "contacts." No employer is likely to hire you without giving the matter careful consideration for the simple reason that you are expensive. If you are going to earn an average of only $50.00 a week for the next ten years, you will cost some employer $26,000.00. If he is a particularly able employer, this means all the profit on $260,000.00 of business. Obviously, nobody is going to spend that much money without careful consideration. It will help you in selling your services if you will realize at the outset that you have a high unit of sale and that the prospective employer has a right to ask you any and every question he may desire.
The employer who hires you will do so for only one reason—what he believes you can do for him. Compensation is a reward for services rendered. It is not a cause but an effect. So you may fairly say that you are not looking for a job, but some employer to whom you can render a valuable service.
Exactly what service can you render an employer?
This question is one which few can answer intelligently. Most men think that they know a great deal about themselves. As a matter of fact very few men know themselves. "When a man has trouble in closing his prospects, or in arranging "contacts," or in writing letters that pull, the chances are four out of five that his trouble lies in his lack of knowledge of himself. Accurate self-analysis cannot be made in a slip-shod way; but there are tricks which can be used advantageously. Most large corporations use intelligent questionnaires. If you will secure the blanks of any half-dozen corporations and complete these blanks, you are almost certain to find before you have completed the last blank, that you have located the root of your trouble.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION NEEDED
It is not possible, of course, to get the measure of a man by asking questions. In analyzing yourself or in going after a position, supplementary information is most worthwhile. Prepare this as a part of an analysis of yourself. Use it as your good judgment dictates. Let this supplementary information contain complete information carefully paragraphed and captioned, covering: 1. Early environment—that is, the kind of home from which you come. 2. Scholastic activities—meaning the subjects in which you excelled, and also the ones you did not like. 3. Any work you did while attending college to earn money. 4. A tabulated list of the industries in which you have had experience. 5. Complete information regarding problems met and solved.
In studying your market, you should pay particular attention to two things. First, the probable growth or decline of various industries; and second, the management of various companies. It is much easier for a capable man to forge ahead in an industry which is expanding than it is in one which is stagnating or contracting. In the prosperous years immediately preceding the depression, 80 per cent of all profits were produced by 20 per cent of all employers Behind this fact lies another fact which is even now not appreciated by too many people—profits come only through men and only the outstandingly capable men are today producing profits. In going after a job, you should try hard to get into a particularly well-managed company. Also you should consider the character of the managers of that organization—are they really willing to pay for results if, as, and when you can produce them?
In selling your services, letters are your most valuable tool. With a postage stamp and a little time, you can reach any employer in the country and tell him your story. If you write letters, do not ask yourself if they will go to the wastebasket, or be read. You do not ask yourself this question when you write to a personal friend or to any business man on any subject except getting a job. Write as you talk. Perhaps it would be better to say, "Don't write, but talk." Think what you would say to the employer if you were talking to him over the telephone. Write it down, sign it, and mail it.
Another tool which is little appreciated is a telephone canvass. If you are located in a large center, you can take a list of 100 employers, gleaned from the advertising columns of the newspapers and magazines and from the classified telephone directory, call each of them on the telephone and ask for a job. You may stumble a bit the first two or three times you try this, but if you will call a hundred firms, you are almost certain to be agreeably surprised at the results.
When you meet an employer face to face, tell him what he wants to hear so far as you can do so and be truthful. Particularly, try to show him that you are not just another cucumber in the cucumber patch. Speaking generally, most employers like men who are like themselves. If you are asked to submit a photograph submit a good one. You wouldn't think of putting out an automobile catalogue containing photographs of 1930 or 1925 automobiles. Don't show yourself as you were five or ten years ago and don't ever send a photograph except one taken with you looking straight into the camera.
Many outstanding successful men say that they are successful because of four factors. They work and study hard, but they have from someone else expert direction and intelligent criticism. Hard work and study today are not enough to insure success. Direction and criticism are also necessary. Stretch your mind. Keep it elastic and active. Invest some of your marginthat is the time when you are not working, eating or sleeping—in keeping yourself alive and out of deadening ruts. If you do this well enough you can be the buyer of jobs rather than the salesman of your services. Results count.
